This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 6, 2017 - November 12, 2017
The Edge Malaysia Top Property Developers Awards is an exercise to rank Malaysia’s top property players based on their quantitative and qualitative attributes — from the consumer’s perspective. The ranking is published annually.
Introduced in 2003, it is based on the conviction that a developer’s quantitative attributes alone are not sufficient to earn it the title of most outstanding player. A property developer is judged not only on how profitable the company is or how many homes it builds and sells each year but also on its qualitative attributes.
All companies listed on Bursa Malaysia’s property sector are automatically considered for the awards while non-listed developers that are interested to be ranked need to submit entries. Advertisements calling for entries from privately owned companies and the property development arms of companies not listed on Bursa’s property sector were published in The Edge Malaysia.
Quantitative attributes
Four quantitative attributes, namely shareholders’ funds, profit before tax, revenue and cash/net gearing make up 35% of the overall score. Net gearing is defined as the total of long and short-term loans minus cash divided by shareholders’ funds.
All financial data considered for the 2017 awards was based on a developer’s FY2016 results. The quantitative data of listed developers was derived from documents submitted to Bursa. Non-listed companies were required to submit copies of their audited accounts. Where signed audited financial statements were not available, data certified by the developer’s external auditors was used. Ten non-listed developers took part this year.
Qualitative attributes
Qualitative attributes contribute a greater weightage of 65%. The five attributes evaluated are product quality (finishing and timeliness), innovation and creativity (in the products and marketing), value creation for buyers (capital appreciation), image (includes credibility) and expertise (includes management and experience). Effective this year, a truncated mean has been adopted to compute the qualitative attributes, where the highest and the lowest scores given by the judges are discarded and the average is based on the remaining scores.
Points awarded
A maximum of 10 points are awarded for each qualitative and quantitative attribute. Points for quantitative attributes are based on the financial data of the company while points for qualitative attributes are awarded by a panel of judges comprising industry experts and veterans as well as The Edge Malaysia. Also effective this year, companies with scores that are less than 0.5 point of each other will be ranked equally. For example, company A with 60.1 points and company B with 60.5 points will be ranked the same.
This year’s judges were Datuk Jeffrey Ng, Tan Sri Teo Chiang Kok, Kumar Tharmalingam, Tan Sri Eddy Chen, Datuk Seri F D Iskandar, Datuk Seri Michael Yam, Datuk Soam Heng Choon and Ho Chin Soon. The Edge Malaysia was represented by its publisher and group CEO Ho Kay Tat, EdgeProp.my managing director and editor-in-chief Au Foong Yee and City & Country editor Rosalynn Poh.
Judges who abstained from the deliberation and judging of companies in which they had direct or indirect interests were Ng for Sunway Bhd (he is CEO of Sunway REIT Management Sdn Bhd), Chen for MKH Bhd (managing director), F D Iskandar for Glomac Bhd (managing director and CEO), Soam for IJM Land (CEO and managing director of IJM Corp Bhd) and Yam for Paramount Corp Bhd and Sunway Bhd (director for both).
Results audited
The property developers were ranked according to their overall score. After the points for the quantitative and qualitative attributes were tabulated, the results were audited by Deloitte Malaysia.
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